PS3 game patches can now be downloaded in the background

By manipulating the PlayStation Plus Automatic Update feature you can now download game patches in the background, and new system information screens displayed during the process suggest this is a planned feature which may be officially implemented in a future firmware update.

OMG this is GREAT NEWS especially for those like me with slow connections! many times, I just want to play the damn games offline but still connected to PSN for any incoming messages but can't because the damn game must be updated 1st and the updates are slapped in your face and you can't do shit about it and huge patches are a pain in the a**! 1 of the most annoying feature on the PS3 for me and man was I glad the Vita is different! come on Sony, don't just do this for the PS+ members, this should be done for all games since the beginning!

Being a BF3 premium member i have to download the patch first and then the DLC, so something around 3 to 4 GB every time a new DLC is available. And i do it with this trick, downloading the patch and DLC in the background

@lodossrage the dude has a point. live gets trashed allmost daily here because people pay for it. didnt u do the same thing just the other day in a free xbox game news? paying is paying no matter how u look at it. not defending just saying he has a point. maybe you dudes can stop arguing now about trivial things.

Actually no, I responded to when your pal ALLWRONG made an attempt to trash the free games given within the Playstation Plus program. In other words, making a "point" the same way you're "trying" to say he is. There was no "trashing" going on until your buddy threw the first salvo there (go back and read it if you need to) Unless you call someone saying "I got Walking Dead 1 and 2 free from PSN Plus a fire off. Would it have been any less of a salvo had he said "I got Walking Dead 1 and 2 off Steam"?

So go right ahead, keep defending him :). Even with your so called "looking at comment histories" and now you see blatantly how your pal stealth trolls.

And if this "argument" is so trivial, what are you even putting yourself into it? :)

Black911 had a point when he said what he did right? Why didn't you jump and try to save his balls the way you so promptly jump to save ALLWRONG'S? :) But I probably already know the answer to that question anyway

didnt black911 and allwrong both get removed 4 trolling? thats what i thought. fact is you r all hypocrites but on this site there r more hypocrites on one side. you r just as guilty of it. not once have i ever said anything bad about ms sony pc or nintendo. can u say the same? will u be in the next cry about live news? how about your buds will they b there 2?

Automatic downloading is a premium version of a free service. Online play on Live is the premium version of no service. Free members can download patches before a game starts on PS3. On 360, free members get to look at a really cool prompt to pay for Gold when they try to play online. The difference? PS3 gamers get a basic, and standard version of a feature. 360 gamers get nothing.

You might have a point on the day Sony restricts all forms of patch downloading to paid subscribers.

let me see if i get this right. trash live 4 charging things psn and steam give u 4 free but defend psn 4 charging u 4 things steam or live gives 4 free? its like right there and u dont see it? thats like smokers telling other smokers they shouldnt smoke. btw sorry using phone.

EXCEPT for the fact PSN DOESN'T charge for it. You only tried to make it sound like they do with your first account (ALLWRONG). If they did charge for patches, the media would have been all over it.

You'd think on one of your accounts you'd exercise some knowledge. And yes, I AM implying you have more than one. Since you conveniently seem to come to Allwrong's rescue. Not to mention you seem to pop up JUST when Allwrong has no more bubbles.

If that wasn't enough, just check your genders on both your accounts. You could have did yourself a favor by changed at least one of them fromm "u". If you're going to have multiple accounts and stealth troll, be less obvious next time.

You're a moron and fail to understand why Live is "trashed" on here on a "daily basis(?)".

The service itself is not trashed. Microsoft are criticized for charging their customers for basic Peer 2 Peer online gameplay and there's nothing illogical or fanboyish about recognizing that it's a fundamental rip off and disrespectful to consumers to give them no option. I would probably own an Xbox console if it was free to connect to online games, and that is the cutoff point for me. When I can't even connect to a P2P game for free, it's game over.

And I think you know the difference between this feature on PS+ and MS FORCING you to pay.

"""I mean since you have to pay for extra features like "downloading patches in the background" than there should be no more debate about other pay services."""

No comparison. It's just that - an "extra" feature. It's not something so fundamental to what games are, like online gameplay to the majority of the games you own. The choice to download patches for free is still there. Just because it offends you that people can see what MS has been doing for years, doesn't mean we're not gonna express human logic.

So just face it, no one with any logic is bagging on the quality XBL service. Just Microsoft's poor industry standards and removing your option of something so basic that the rest of the industry gets for free.

If you think what you're saying about PS+ is any sort of comparison, you'd be dead wrong. ALL wrong.

With PS+ which is a paid subscription, I can download patches and upgrades in the background where if I wasn't a paid subscriber to PS+ I would still obviously get to download upgrades and patches but just not in the background.

I'm sorry but if I do have this correct, this feature should be standard across the board and not to people who pay. This is not a privilege service feature.

I hope we can stop with all this Paying for XBL bs to use apps when in actuality people are paying for the online service and features first and everything else is just free extras because that same bs argument can be said that people have to pay for ps+ just to download upgrades and patches in the background

I can't believe you even asked such a question. Why would Sony charge people for patches?

Anyhow this isn't even a feature. It helps to actually read the article. This is a work around/trick, hence the tutorial given in the article, but this trick can only be utilized by PS+ users. It uses the "automatic update" which automatically downloads things such as software updates while the system is off(when the power light is red) and this function is only available to PS+ users.

This article is just showing us a trick to use the automatic update to download things such as patches in the background. This isn't official though I wish Sony made a much more convenient official background download feature though, PS+ exclusive or not.

@Lvl_Up_Gamer

The main issue with Xbox Live isn't that the free apps are exclusive to gold. If it bothers one so much just have your laptop next to you if want to use the "apps that are free elsewhere" that people go on about. The main issue is that you have to pay in order play the online portion of your games. You say that people pay for XBL because of the service and features first which I'm sure a large percentage do, but I'm willing to bet the major reason why people renew their payment regularly is because not doing so would result in them losing the online multiplayer on their games which honestly should not be a "privilege service feature."

And? what does either of them being removed for trolling have to do with the question I asked?

What I asked was this:

"Black911 had a point when he said what he did right? Why didn't you jump and try to save his balls the way you so promptly jump to save ALLWRONG'S? :) But I probably already know the answer to that question anyway"

Not a hard question to answer is it?

And I don't cry about live. If you checked my comments the way you say you did, you'll noticed I'm hardly ever in 360 news.

And no I can't say I haven't said anything bad about MS. But then again, I'm not the one that constantly goes around purposely trolling my gripes about them either. Go right ahead, check and see how many "cry about Live" articles I'm in.

And for as "trivial" as you say this is, you're sure enough "all-up-in-it" aren't you?

This is a great feature for PS+ subscribers. I like how it downloads and installs the patches / updates, syncs trophies and has new firmware ready and waiting for install.

But I do think this should be a standard feature.

There is nothing more annoying than trying to jump in to an online game and having to wait for an update to download. If something impacts users ability to play the games they have bought in this way, then it should not be reserved for PS+ subscribers.

This has been a feature of automatic updates from the start..... How do you think game patches were downloaded and updated for auto updates? Really people... Took you this long to continue playing your ps3 during an auto update.

I just install the game then let PS+ update that night. I always play single player first so don't need the updates right away for that. When I got my slim and had to reinstall all my Rock band songs, it was awesome to download all the songs and packs and have the icons all showing then that night plus auto installed them. No 1x1 reinstalls of 100 songs and packs.

Wouldn't a hard freeze while installing an update brick a Ps3? Too many games these days are sold with game crashing, hard freeze errors. You don't want a hard freeze when your system is trying to install something.

If you mean a system update then there is a fail safe to prevent bricking now. I believe a copy of the original software is stored on the system firmware. I had the power go out during an update about a year ago, and when I restarted the PS3 had a fussy message about not turning off the power during an update, it did a disc check, then installed the update afterwards.

If a game freezes you usually have to do a hard restart and it'll recheck the hard drive(happened to me quite a lot on ME1 this past week). I'd imagine if it's during an install or update you may have to reinstall the game software and updates since they could be corrupted or incomplete, but the system files are likely protected on the hard drive.

I'm just glad you were able to survive a shutdown from a power outage during an install. I've experienced the hard freeze system check/restore with black ops2 and fight night champion but I don't think it's ever had to actually restore anything yet.

both sony and ms need to get on the ball next gen with multitasking, consoles right now are so far behind, it feels like im using a computer from my elementary school...the ones with beige cases

i want to be able to dowload 3 demos, while i'm playing a game AND four of my games are getting the patches they need, I should be able to, at the same time, pause my game, check my email, check the forums of a game im currently playing and ask a question to the community and then call a friend who is doing all the same things on his system with entirely different games.

steam can do all that and more plus it has mods, and AMAZING sales and it has a console coming out soon!

sony, microsoft...make it happen! your new systems need to be able to do all of those things

"i want to be able to dowload 3 demos, while i'm playing a game AND four of my games are getting the patches they need, I should be able to, at the same time, pause my game, check my email, check the forums of a game im currently playing and ask a question to the community and then call a friend who is doing all the same things on his system with entirely different games."

You can already do almost all of that with consoles minus visiting forums.

I believe it will update regardless of when you last played. That's what that thing is whenever you start a new game it asks if you want to use the cloud and turn auto-update on/off for it. I never thought to check if I could turn it off for individual games I don't play anymore. With auto-update I haven't seen a patch screen unless it's a brand new game.

I've been doing this for a while now when I realised the system put the patches in my download list. What I don't get is why if it can be done its not a standard feature now, they've had quite some time to add it to a firmware update.

maybe, but when i get a new game its kinda annoying to wait 3 hours(slow net and some patches are huge) to download a patch when I should be able to do other things on my ps3 in the meantime.

now i have to set my auto update time to whatever time it is, then switch off my ps3, then give it a couple minutes if auto update and finally exit it to see it in my download list, all it needed was a "download in background" option that they added so long ago to games and videos and almost every other downloadable thing.

It's not an official feature offered by Sony. Just a workaround. Could even be called an exploit. It's funny because this has been possible to do for a while, yet now everyone is crying foul. I might as well if it were officially supported by Sony.

Being vocal isn't a bad thing. I don't really think N4G is the place to do so though if you want to see them make change. Sony has forums for this kind of stuff. They even have a feature request thread. Your much more likely to be heard there, because I highly doubt Sony's engineers are spending time here.

In a sense, yes...but better. From day 1, the 360 game patches have been incorporated into the launching of a game, so it downloads, installs, and reboots the game, all in a matter of seconds. There have never been any ridiculous game or system updates on the 360 that tie up your console and knock you out of gaming for a while. On the PS3, that's been a common theme. MS has always had very stringent certification protocols for updates, DLC, etc...but for a damn good reason. Just one of the many things that make XBL the superior service it's always been.